Dr Kwabena Duffuor, Minister for Finance and Economic Planning The Government of Ghana has signed two agreements with the Spanish Government last Friday in Accra .
The two agreements are the Conversion of Loans into Grant Facility Agreement and the agreement for the Debt Swap for Development Programme.
The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffour who signed on behalf of the Government of Ghana, said the bilateral relations between the two countries have been strengthened and the Spanish Government's support has also been great over the years.
Commenting on the conversion of Loans into Grant facility, the Minister said out of the 60 million euros made available to Ghana under the 2nd Ghana-Spain Financial Protocol, 10 million and 5 million euros were allocated to the Ministry of Interior and the Energy Ministry respectively.
Eight million euros out of the 10 million euros allocated to the Ministry of Interior was for the supply of equipments for the Ghana Police Service (GPS) and 2 million for the supply of communication equipments for the Ghana Immigration Service.
'The Spanish Government has however converted the 8 million euros for the GPS and the 5 million euros for the Energy Ministry into grants', the Minister adding that this decision by the Spanish Government has reduced the loan component of the facility to about 47 million euros and increased the grant component to 18 million euros.
On the Debt Swap for Development Programme agreement, the Spanish Government has to the Government and people of Ghana a debt relief of about 45.25 million euros which were loans contracted before 20th June 1999 under the HIPC debt relief initiative, said the Minister.
This he said will allow the debt obligation of Ghana towards Spain to be transformed into investment projects which will impact on the economic and human development of the people of Ghana.
Dr Duffour thanked the Spanish Government for their invaluable support and assured them that the resources allocated will be used judiciously for the purpose for which they have been provided.
The Spanish Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs Julio Olmo who signed on behalf of the Spanish Government, said the signing of the two agreements was for two projects: the 'Off-Grid Solar Electrification' and the 'supply of equipment to the Ghanaian Police Force.'
According to the Ambassador, the Debt Swap mechanism will imply that the debt service affected by the cancellation will be deposited by Ghana in a Ghanaian-Spanish Trust Fund adding that there are currently credit facilities of up to 60 million euros to finance several projects in the transportation, water, health, energy, irrigation, communication and fishing sectors.
She said the Spanish Government reaffirmed its commitment to Africa recently at the ECOWAS-Spain High Level Meeting in Abuja in Nigeria where he informed them of a new 'Export Plan of Infrastructure to Sub-Saharan Africa' for an overall amount of 70 million euros. Ghana, she said has been chosen as a priority country for this plan.
She assured the Government of Ghana 'on their determination to work with them to pursue this undertaking.'
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